CIAT responds to the Interim Report on Building Regulations and Fire Safety

Following a round table event, Professor Sam Allwinkle PPBIAT MCIAT representing CIAT said that ‘Dame Judith was made aware of the Robust Details initiative for sound insulation design, installation and testing performance of materials and components for compliance of Part E Building Regulations in England for the resistance to the passage of sound and sound insulation and welcomed this information and how the principles of this system could be applied to Building Regulations Part B: Fire Safety and that a similar robust and rigorous system could be developed to ensure compliance yet encourage innovation’.

Professor Allwinkle confirmed to Dame Judith Hackitt that CIAT would send detailed information directly to her on this topic.

CIAT also considers that attention is given to the Qualitative Design Review or QDR which is defined in PD 7974: 2001 as the initial stage of any engineering design in which the basic design parameters for a project are established and the scope and objectives of the fire strategy can be defined. To undertake QDR effectively can seem to be an expensive luxury during the early stages of many projects. However, it can be a very valuable exercise which can identify problems early and potentially help to reduce project cost and risk.

In the response, CIAT also referred to some international comparisons with the UAE.

Following the Building Regulations and Fire Safety Summit a paper has been released seeking specialists to put themselves forward to work on the next stages. As one of the key professionals to ensure we move forward in a positive and constructive way, we will be nominating such specialist members to the Review for the next stage.

The Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) is the lead qualifying body for Architectural Technology and represents those practising and studying within the discipline. CIAT qualifies Chartered Architectural Technologists, MCIAT, and professionally qualified Architectural Technicians, TCIAT.